The big bugbear I have with these types of cameras is the short ‘pig-tail’ lead that comes attached to the camera. It’s obviously done so that the camera can be factory sealed (to achieve the high IP rating you need for outdoor cameras), but it does mean you have to find a way of routing the cable into your property. I did enquire as to the length of this lead, and was told it was about 30cm, but upon measuring it, it’s closer to 60cm.

The attached lead on the XC1080V

The common solution people use is to mount a junction box next to the camera to house the connectors. I don’t particularly like this solution, not only because I think it looks ugly, but also it seems slightly insecure to me. I suppose there are easier ways of defeating a security camera than unscrewing a lid and severing some connections (spray paint, chewing gum, balaclava?), but I’ve had to accept that’s the way I’m going to have to go for most of my cameras. Two of them will be at second floor level, so will be reasonably resilient to vandals, but one of them is on the front of the garage at about 2.8 metres.

I’ve mounted loads of things to the walls inside the garage, and it’s like drilling into butter. The blocks its made from are incredibly powdery, and given that the outside of the garage is rendered, I figured the whole wall would be made of these blocks.

I reasoned I could fairly easily make a hole large enough to get the connectors through, into the inside of the garage where I could make the necessary connections.

So I measured, then measured again, and then once more to be sure and then broke out the 3 foot drill bit. After drilling 8 or 9 holes close together and a bit of wiggling around of the bit, the wall crumbled away and I ended up with a roughly 22x22mm square(ish) hole. A few rehearsals and I managed to figure out a way of getting the three connectors (ethernet, power and video test) through the hole and into the garage.

In here I had a TP-Link powerline adapter plugged in and the power supply for the camera, so I just routed the cables along the wall and into them. I finished off the interior hole by screwing a Wiska IP junction box over the top to keep everything spider and draught proof.

The camera bracket has 4 cut outs at right angles to each other to allow the cable from the back of the camera ball to protrude through. So I took care to mount the bracket at such an angle that I could get the maximum twist of the camera in the bracket that I needed to to get the picture I wanted.